Cartoon Network
:For other Cartoon Networks, see the article Cartoon Networks Worldwide. Cartoon Network (commonly referred to as CN) is a cable television network created by Turner Broadcasting which primarily shows animated programming. The original American channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 with Looney Tunes being its first-ever aired program. From then on, Cartoon Network has launched many other shows including Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, The Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Courage: the Cowardly Dog, Grim and Evil and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Though Cartoon Network is mainly child-based, a more adult-oriented block titled Adult Swim is aired late-night. The network's headquarters is located in Atlanta, Georgia and has been stationed in Atlanta since the network's launch. History Late 1980s-1993 By the end of the 1980s, Ted Turner's cable-TV conglomerate had acquired the MGM film library (which included the older catalog of pre-1948 color Warner Bros. cartoons), and its cable channel Turner Network Television had gained an audience with its film library. In 1990, it purchased animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions and acquired its large library as well as most of the Ruby-Spears library. Cartoon Network was created as an outlet for Turner's considerable library of animation, and the initial programming on the channel consisted exclusively of re-runs of classic Warner Bros. (like Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), MGM (like Tom and Jerry and Droopy Dog), and Hanna-Barbera cartoons (like The Jetsons and The Flintstones), with many Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons like Wally Gator used as time fillers. Most of the short cartoons were aired in half-hour or hour-long packages, usually separated by character or studio — Down With Droopy D aired old Droopy Dog shorts, The Tom and Jerry Show presented the classic cat-and-mouse team, and Bugs and Daffy Tonight provided classic Looney Tunes shorts. Today, no classics remain on the network. 1994-2004 In 1995, Hanna-Barbera started production on The What-A-Cartoon! Show (also known as World-Premiere Toons And "What-A-Cartoon"), a series of creator-driven short cartoons that premiered on Cartoon Network in 1995. It was the network's third original series (the second was Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and the first was The Moxy Show). The project was spearheaded by several Cartoon Network executives, plus Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi (who was an advisor to the network at the time) and Fred Seibert (who was formerly one of the driving forces behind the Nicktoons, and would go on to produce the similar animation anthology series Oh, Yeah! Cartoons). In 1996, Time Warner purchased Turner Broadcasting, and with it, Cartoon Network. The Network gained access to the complete Warner Bros. cartoon library, which had not been under ownership since 1957. The library includes WB cartoons from the 1950s to the 1980s, and newer cartoons like Road Rovers, Animaniacs, Freakazoid, and Pinky and the Brain. Time Warner changed the direction of Hanna-Barbera Productions (the production studio now known as Cartoon Network Studios), and focused the studio exclusively on creating new material for the Network (which were baptized Cartoon Cartoons). These productions include: Dexter's Laboratory (1996), Johnny Bravo (1997), Cow and Chicken (1997), and The Powerpuff Girls (1998) (all of which were shorts, previously launched on What a Cartoon with the creative work of Hanna-Barbera art director Jesse Stagg), and more recently Codename: Kids Next Door (2003), Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (2004), and Camp Lazlo (2005). To free up air time for said new shows, the listed classics were retired. The older Hanna-Barbera cartoons, as well as the entire Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies library, and non-Tom and Jerry cartoons made by MGM such as those made by Tex Avery, have been largely moved to the nostalgia-themed Boomerang sister network. 2004-2006 On June 14, 2004, Cartoon Network relaunched itself with a new logo and slogan, “This is Cartoon Network.” The bumps now featured 2D cartoon characters from their shows interacting in a CGI city composed of sets from their shows. Nearly all of Cartoon Network's classic cartoon programming has been replaced by new programming, save for Tom and Jerry, a longtime staple of the Turner networks. Within a few months, the network took off more shows from the 1990s (Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, etc.) and put them on a 30 minute block called The Cartoon Cartoon Show. Some shows like Mike, Lu, and Og and Sheep in the Big City were taken off the network completely, all of these actions to the chagrin of longtime fans. 2006-present In the summer of 2006, Cartoon Network's slogan was changed to a simplistic “Cartoon Network - Yes!,” as spoken by Fred Fredburger, a character on The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. The network also used bumps featuring the cast of Camp Lazlo as stick puppets and characters in front of a red background. The new campaign featured three different styles of bumps. The first style is "Lunchbox of Doom", featuring an assortment of show clips inside a CGI goth-looking lunchbox, a reference to an episode of the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. The second is "VS.", comparing two cartoon characters. The last style is a reprise of the CGI City look, using flat, dark colors. As of 2007, Cartoon Network does not have a slogan, but they retained the image campaign that began in 2006, although a slightly refreshed version of the theme is currently in use. In Fall 2007, the channel will begin broadcasting in High Definition. Present Shows ::View Cartoons. Programming Blocks Cartoon Cartoons Cartoon Cartoons, a series of comedic animated shorts produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions guided by Fred Seibert, who founded the Nickelodeon-based Frederator Studios years later. Originally known as "World Premiere Toons," the shorts were essentially series pilots — the idea was to measure audience response and turn the most popular shorts into series. Only a small handful of the shorts ever made series, however. The first short to air was "The Powerpuff Girls Meat Fuzzy Lumpkins," but it would be three years before the girls got their own series. This show also aired the cartoon "Larry and Steve", which was the prototype of the hit show Family Guy. The first series to spin off from What-a-Cartoon! was Dexter's Laboratory in 1996. A year later, Johnny Bravo and Cow and Chicken joined Dexter on the Cartoon Network lineup. The Powerpuff Girls became a Cartoon Cartoons series in the fall of 1998. Ed, Edd, n Eddy came later as the first Cartoon Cartoons series not to be introduced in a What-A-Cartoon! short. More shows premiered bearing the Cartoon Cartoons moniker, airing throughout the network's schedule and prominently on Cartoon Cartoon Fridays, which became the marquee night for premieres of new episodes and new shows. For three years during Summer, Cartoon Network actually let fans pick which of that year's crop of Cartoon Cartoon shorts made series, by staging a vote where fans could choose from among the three most popular entries. The first short to be voted into a series was The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (originally known as Grim & Evil) in 2000, and a year later Codename: Kids Next Door was voted in 2001. Both have gone on to become two of Cartoon Network's longest-running series. Megas XLR was voted in the year later and ran its own series as well, along with Whatever Happened To Robot Jones in 2002, which didn't receive popular vote but became a series sometime later. Both of which, however, were short-lived. As of September the name is primarily used for The Cartoon Cartoon Show, an hour-long program featuring episodes of older Cartoon Cartoons that are no longer shown regularly on the network.